Tracking Shots

Tracking Shots

          The term tracking shot may refers to to any shot in which the camera follows a subject within the frame a shot, usually by the camera  being mounted on a camera dolly, a wheeled platform that is pushed on rails, a handheld camera operator, or by being panned on a tripod. Long tracking shots are common in new wave cinema, so we wanted capture this. we did have a dolly, but the footage would not have been smooth over the concrete, and we didn't have tracks/rail, so instead we went out and film tracking shot in the car.  

These are two screen shots of footage taken on the same day a few minutes apart. there was constant overcast so the light was the same. the image on the left has a higher ISO, about 1600, and makes the footage brighter, whereas the image on the right has a lower ISO, of around 800, so the footage was darker/duller.

The first tracking shot were done wrong, being taken out of the front of the car and the dashboard being seen in shots, and shots being taken through a closed window, so the camera had trouble on what to focus on, also reflections were seen.  

        The second time tracking shots were taken they were done correctly, through a open window and none of the car was seen in the shot. With this said they were still quite shakey (which is what we were trying to avoid, by not using the dolly), and they were not long enough shot to fit with this new wave technique.

       The third time the shots were a lot better; they were through an open window, no car was seen in the shot, the footage was a lot smoother and they tracking times were longer. however i forgot to adjust the shutter speed so the footage has a lot of motion blur. this is not all bad as the movement was what we were trying to capture and there was no specific subject that we were trying to capture.

Screen shots of bushes and moving van with a slower shutter speed of 1/20th per frame, giving a lot of motion blur and making the bushes indistinguishable.



Screen shots of lorry and houses with a fast shutter speed of 1/400 per frame giving crisp footage.


   

                    

We also got some interesting tracking shot through the car windscreen mirror. i found these shots to be very imaginative and added a new spin on our tracking shots.